Maybe you are a new salesperson looking to learn the ropes. Or perhaps you are a seasoned salesperson committed to continuous self-improvement and growth. In either case, learning is in your path.
Sales training aims to set salespeople up for success. It provides an individual sales representative a strong sales foundation and proven, time-tested sales tactics and strategies. In fact, U.S. organizations invest $70 billion annually on training, which comes out to an average of $1,459 per salesperson (Harvard Business Review, June 2017).
There are clearly a lot of resources devoted to helping salespeople improve, but how do you know if it is working or not?
In order to see if what you are learning (and hopefully applying) is working or not, you need to know more than what your win rate is. You need to find out why you are winning and losing.
Win / loss research provides you exactly that information, and what needs to be done to improve your own performance as well as your company’s overall presentation of its products and services. The customized, post-decision interview used in win / loss gives you the candid feedback you need to make competitive adjustments to your sales approach and strategy. Is what you learned in your sales training working?
A win / loss program can help you:
The bottom line is this: Learning is never really done as long as products, services, sales teams, and competitors are always changing. Making win / loss part of your personal sales process is the ongoing sales training that makes a difference.
This past August, Rich was interviewed by Pragmatic’s VP of Marketing Rebecca Kalogeris on Why to Do Win / Loss. Rich and Rebecca recently connected to continue their conversation and focused the discussion on best practices for How to Do Win / Loss. In the episode, Rich talks about how organizations can implement and operate a best-in-class win / loss program. The podcast is available on the Pragmatic Marketing website as well as the iTunes Podcast Library.
Anova’s thought leadership was recently featured in two Pragmatic Marketing publications. This summer’s edition of Pragmatic Marketer Magazine had the theme of “Bridging the Gap with Sales”. Anova Consultant Zach Golden wrote an article about how organizations can successfully implement a win / loss program to ensure sales teams are gathering actionable feedback from their prospects.
If you like podcasts and have 30 minutes, be sure to also check out the interview with Anova’s President Rich Schroder, who spoke with Pragmatic’s VP of Marketing, Rebecca Kalogeris, about win / loss best practices and the future of the industry.
Check out the article by Zach Golden here and the podcast with Rich Schroder here.
“The best things in life are free.” Do you think this famous American proverb was talking about webinars? Surely, not, but we are!
Webinars are awesome. When done right, they are 1) free, 2) educational and 3) entertaining. What’s not to love?
Anova is kicking off a series of webinars that begins next month. We believe so much in the value of Win Loss Research that we want to educate anyone who wants to listen.
Maybe you’ve heard of Win Loss but really have no idea what it is or how it works. Maybe you’ve been asked to look into Win Loss or competitive intelligence research and don’t know where to start. Perhaps you’ve been wanting to implement Win / Loss internally at your organization and need a way to start that conversation in your own office. If you are nodding your head at any of these, come join us!
Our upcoming webinar is free education specifically designed for you. The founder and CEO of Anova, Rich Schroder, will teach you about the key principles – the ABC’s if you will – about Win Loss analysis & research in an interactive session. You’ll learn how this type of research will help you:
Join us! You can click here to register and learn how Win / Loss analysis will help you win more business!
We continue our series From Our Team to Yours with a conversation with Senior Research Analyst Jack Ryan. Learn from Jack as he describes aspects of Anova’s consultative approach and analytical methods for finding trends in aggregate data sets across win / loss research.
Anova: Jack, we are coming up on halfway through 2018 already. So far this year, what are some things you are seeing in win / loss reports that clients should be aware of?
Jack: Making product-related parallels can be difficult because Anova does work across so many unique companies and verticals. Still, there are some sales-related things that are consistent across all the programs right now. Sales skills such as differentiation, needs analysis, and value prop articulation are traits that any sophisticated B2B sales team will need to have, no matter what they are selling.
Anova: Let’s talk about those three sales traits. Have you noticed any trends in reports thus far this year you can share?
Jack: I was actually just working on a benchmarking study about differentiation. One stat that stuck out to me was across all our clients, satisfaction with the winning vendor’s ability to differentiate is about twice as high as satisfaction with the 2nd place provider’s ability to differentiate. And that difference is more pronounced in mature industries where the product is relatively commoditized.
Anova: So, is sales feedback one of the first things you look at in a data set?
Jack: Not necessarily. My typical process is to understand what is most top of mind for our clients’ prospects or clients. In win / loss interviews, that means looking at and getting a really good understanding of the responses to “what were our client’s top strengths” and “what were our client’s top areas for improvement?”. Grasping what stood out most about our clients, both positively and negatively, usually gives me an idea of where to look next in order to tell the story. Sales is almost always part of that story, and those three areas -differentiation, needs analysis, and value articulation- usually play a key role in that narrative.
Anova: You say you want to “tell the story”. What does that mean from your perspective?
Jack: That’s ultimately why most of our clients hire us. Each interview tells the individual story of a single prospect’s unique decision. Then when there is an aggregate data set, it is on Anova to be able to synthesize all those situations and come up with the narrative for our clients of why they are winning and losing business, and ultimately, how they can win more. We don’t want to just list off a series of statistics that have no meaning. For our work to have an impact on the client, the results and subsequent takeaways need to be articulated in a way that ties different data points together and makes sense.
Anova: Do you have an example of a recent client you were able to tell a story to?
Jack: Definitely. We just finished a project for a software client in the network security space. The client recently pivoted to focus on prospects in a few key verticals and was looking for guidance on how their sales approach and product was being perceived in those segments. We had the kickoff and learned about the different hypotheses the client had for why they were losing business. When it came time to analyze the data, instead of just giving a rundown of findings, we related the findings back to the initial hypotheses of the client. For instance, instead of saying product, price, and brand were the top three reasons the client was losing business, we put the results into context by giving our interpretation of whether product, price, and brand were overstated or understated as hypotheses for losing business. Comparing the actual data to the client’s initial guesses was an impactful way to tell a story and help the findings resonate with the client.
Anova: That’s very helpful. Thanks Jack!
Where would a market research company like Anova be without its people? What possible insights and strategies could such a consulting firm offer to its clients without the bedrock of data, stats, and open-ended feedback? The truth is: nowhere.
Whether it be a win / loss program, a departed client program, or client satisfaction program, a key element to Anova’s success it is Executive Interviewer team. In fact, it is probably Anova’s main differentiator in the competitive marketplace. Anova’s interviewers know what they are doing, and they do it better than most.
This is an invitation from our team to yours. Get to know what the Executive Interviewer experience means to you – whether you are our prospect, our client, or just someone on a quest to learn more about Anova – through an interview with one of Anova’s Executive Interviewers, Jeannine Kulsick.
Anova: First, you’ve been with Anova as an Executive Interviewer for seven years. How did you get into this role?
Jeannine: I was introduced to win / loss research while at my previous company and was the consumer of the research. It made such an impact on our business and culture, and ten years ago the idea of win / loss was not entirely mainstream. It was like a little a secret advantage we had over our competitors. I was so intrigued by the work, I made a move from consuming the research to leading the research.
Anova: What skills come into play as an Executive Interviewer?
Jeannine: At Anova, this isn’t about calling someone a thousand times and trying to get through the questions as quickly as possible. There is a certain art to it. To be successful in this role for our clients, I must be a few different things at the same time: accessible and easy to get along with, understanding of people’s time and perspectives, knowledgeable about the industry I am researching within, and competitive with myself to get a great result. I also must be curious. At Anova, this is not about a flat Q&A format. We have to ask beyond the initial question to get to the really good stuff. Getting there is all about curiosity.
Anova: It sounds like probing is a big part of the success. Tell me more about that part.
Jeannine: Yes, that’s the challenging part. We have an interview guide that is negotiated with our client and as part of the program’s kick off, there is a lot of knowledge transfer and training around the program’s goals. Once engaged with an interviewee, as an Executive Interviewer, I am always looking for that next level – the details, the specifics, and the story. I may ask one question that leads to four or five more. It is my job to drill down on the critical aspects of what was important to our client, but also what was important to the prospect. When I get this kind of feedback for our clients, I know it’s a job well done.
Anova: What do you learn from your teammates? The other Executive Interviewers?
Jeannine: So much. We have all walked the walk and talked the talk, just from different perspectives. My colleagues come from the spaces and markets Anova partners with, and bring anywhere from 10 to 30+ years of experience. There’s a lot of knowledge in-house on our team and we are always sharing with each other. It helps deliver better research, really. We’ve done the presenting, we’ve serviced clients, we’ve had to explain why an important client left for a competitor, we’ve journeyed through our own long sales cycles. I think having these perspectives encourage us to think about what we can do to help our clients learn about what they are doing (or not doing!).
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We extend an offer to continue this conversation. In our next From Our Team to Yours blog, get to know lessons and perspectives from one of Anova’s Analysts.
Practice? You can probably think of dozens of reasons why not to practice.
It takes too much time.
Practice is boring and is a drain.
You don’t need it. You’ve been selling to prospects and clients forever…
Even as kids growing up, practice seemed like a pain. After all, did any of us want to practice the piano or multiplication tables? As we mature to adults, the reasons to not practice evolve from reasons to excuses, and from excuses to barriers to success.
Practice matters. It makes us better. Just listen to a couple of world renowned athletes like Pele and Michael Jordan.
Pele, widely regarded as the greatest soccer player of all time, said, “Everything is practice.” Michael Jordan, credited with being one of the best basketball players ever and was one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation said, “You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way. Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”
But what does this have to do with Win / Loss research?
Anova’s team views itself as athletes. We are dedicated to training each of our client’s sales muscles so ultimately their level of competition rises. If you understand why you are winning or losing, you can find out where you need to practice.
Inevitably, feedback from prospects will include commentary about your salesmanship and sales techniques. You may know the product inside and out, but maybe your sales presentation wasn’t customized to the prospect’s unique needs. You may know the pricing structure better than anyone else on your sales team, but perhaps the upfront needs analysis wasn’t good enough and the competition asked more relevant questions, allowing them to come up with the perfect pricing solution. Maybe you came from the service side of your business and are selling because you know how good the implementation and on-going service will be, but you exposed limitations because you were unable to involve the right people during the sales process – and the prospect ended up feeling not as important as they wanted.
Anova’s research identifies the areas needing more practice. If you know where you need to improve your fundamentals, you can practice. If you practice, you will improve. If you improve, you will win more business.
“The more a person feels understood, and positively affirmed in that understanding, the more likely that urge for constructive behavior will take hold.”
Chris Voss, former lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, knows a thing or two about changing behavior. In his book Never Split the Difference, Voss instructs the reader how to execute a number of his signature negotiation tactics.
Among stories of haggling with terrorists, kidnappers, and even Harvard professors, Voss also brings his strategies to the business world and explains ways business people can change the behavior of the party they are negotiating against. One important step in convincing someone to change their behavior (such as switching from not needing your product / service to buying it) is having the other party feel like their needs are being understood and valued.
In the sales world, understanding needs is a critical element of what is known as the consultative approach. What is the consultative approach exactly? Think of it as the articulation of how a proposed solution will fill the prospect’s unique business requirements. And in order to successfully map a solution to the prospect’s needs, an effective needs analysis first needs to take place.
Across Anova’s win / loss research, consultative approach is one of the leading indicators of a successful sale. In fact, in one recent study, the client’s win prospects cited consultative approach as the number one strength of the sales team. But in losses, the number one area for improvement was the lack of a consultative approach.
So what does that mean?
For one, it means the client’s sales team was inconsistent in their execution of the approach. But secondly, it means that the data reinforced the notion that a well-executed consultative approach puts the sales team in a very good position to close the deal. If the sales team was able to effectively complete the needs assessment and map their solution to the prospect’s needs, it most likely ended in a win. Conversely, if they were not able to complete those steps, the client was more likely to lose the deal.
So how can sales teams learn to be more consistent in their execution of the consultative approach? Let’s look at one anecdote Voss detailed in his book involving a pupil of his who was trying to close a substantial deal as a sales representative for a large pharmaceutical company.
Voss’s student had had numerous appointments with a hospital trying to sell a doctor a new kind of medication. However, each meeting ended the same way, with the doctor ignoring the salesperson’s pitch and dismissing the product.
Eventually, the student tried a different tactic. Instead of trying to pitch the new medication right off the bat, she started a meeting with a needs assessment.
“They talked about specific challenges [the doctor] had… [The salesperson] learned how her medication would fit into [the doctor’s] practice. She then paraphrased what he said about the challenges of his practice and reflected them back to him.” The salesperson eventually “could tout the attributes of her product and describe precisely how it would help [the doctor] reach the outcomes he desired… She made the sale.”
The salesperson was finally able to successfully close the deal, but only after committing the time to learning about her counterpart and what the customer was trying to accomplish. Voss’s story exemplifies how effective a well-executed consultative approach can be in turning even the stingiest of prospects into a satisfied buyer.
For salespeople in any industry, being able to execute the consultative approach is vital to closing deals. Remember to commit to the needs analysis, as making the prospect feel understood is the important first step in changing their behavior from evaluator to buyer.
A few months ago, we wrote about setting goals for the new year. A few months later it’s time to check-in. How are those resolutions coming? Have you, and your organization, been making progress?
April, and more specifically the end of Q1, is a great time to check-in on those goals. When we think about goal-setting, our objectives typically fall into one of two categories: short-term and long-term. Similarly, win / loss has both short and long-term benefits.
Think about how a traditional win / loss program is constructed. There are the individual interviews that happen on an ongoing basis, and then aggregate reporting that is done to synthesize insights and discover trends.
Those individual transcripts are a gold mine for individual people on your team. The salesperson can read the voice of the prospect’s commentary about their performance and how well that new sales tactic they tried was received. The pricing specialist can learn if their fee structure was perceived to be transparent or not. The product manager will see a side-by-side comparison of their solution to the competition. There is an incredible amount to be learned from a single debrief, but it is just one data point.
That is where the importance of aggregate findings comes in. Those learnings from the individual transcript are helpful for understanding what happened in a single deal, but need to be looked at in the context of the full data set. That new sales tactic that was tried? It may have worked in one situation, but fell short in the other three afterwards. The fee structure may be transparent to a procurement specialist who is well trained in handling pricing models, but is too complex for business-line personnel to understand. And the product comparison? Products are ever-changing, and a perceived competitive gap in one deal may be narrowed by the next. In order to fully understand how all of the aspects of your offering rate, you need a broader sample set with much more deal flow. Then, looking at the aggregate results can help decision makers pinpoint where the actual areas for improvement are.
In many public companies right now, sales teams are reviewing the last deals that counted towards their early-year quotas, and finance and accounting teams are getting ready for the scramble of calculating quarterly earnings. They are focused hitting their short-term goals. Meanwhile in the board rooms upstairs, executives are monitoring those short-term numbers, while also trying to measure the successes of the first three months against their long-term plans. Take a similar approach to your win / loss program. Keep focused on the individual deals and their learnings, but don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees, and remember the power of the broader program-wide results.
At the beginning of the year, we discussed the theme of goals. We talked about setting the bar high for yourself and your organization, and also about achieving those objectives. And while goals and aspirations are certainly very personal endeavors, it is important to note that win / loss isn’t just about you. It’s also a useful tool for understanding your customers’ goals.
Fully understanding your prospects’ needs is a quintessential step in any complex, high-dollar value sale. Anova’s research has repeatedly pinpointed a lack of effective needs analysis and / or consultative approach as one of the top reasons why our clients lose specific deals. Those two areas: understanding the prospect’s unique needs and mapping your solution to those points, is easy to talk about doing, but difficult to consistently execute.
When you are looking at an individual transcript from a win / loss interview and analyzing the performance of the sales team, think of a funnel, or an upside down pyramid, with three key attributes:
Unsurprisingly, Anova’s data from our clients’ loss situations shows an ineffective or inconsistent execution of all three phases of this sales pyramid. But, that is also where win / loss is helping them.
Questions such as “what were the most important attributes you were looking for at the beginning of your search?”, “what did the sales team do well / not well?” and “did the sales team clearly articulate and map their value proposition to your needs?” will help uncover what the prospects goals were in finding a new solution, and how effective the sales team was at addressing those needs and helping the prospect achieve their goals.
Do you have visibility into how effective your sales team is at all three phases of the sales pyramid?